Wayne State Law v. University of Oklahoma

I'm from Oklahoma, but want to end up in Michigan. I got a 75% scholarship to Wayne, and a reasonable scholarship to Oklahoma. If I want to live in Michigan is Wayne the better option for jobs and internships after school? I would save money with Oklahoma because I could live at home, and Oklahoma is ranked much better. Would I still be able to get a job in Michigan coming from the university of Oklahoma?

As Falcon stated going to Wayne is great for Michigan and if you want to work in Michigan you should go to one of the several law schools in Michigan. The reasons are you can do internships in Michigan while in school, your professors, LCS, etc will have connections in their area. People that live in Michigan generally know people in Michigan. People in Oklahoma mostly know people from Oklahoma it is just geography. Then the realities of the legal market today people aren't recruiting law students you need to sell yourself, and in 3 years when you have a substantial amount of debt how are you going to afford hotels, flying, etc back and forth for an interview. I suppose you could just up and move to Michigan take the bar there, but that is a large additional cost and you won't have worked with anyone in Michigan when looking for a job. I know people have done it and not to say you can't, but that is quite a hurdle to overcome when you could just go to school in Michigan.

COSTSYou need to look at the overall costs as well when making the decision. I am assuming your a resident of Oklahoma you will be paying 16k per year plus whatever scholarship you mentioned. Furthermore, you stated you could live at home so you could get out with 50k in debt, which would be pretty good.

Wayne State will be 25k per year, but you have a 75% scholarship so substantially less. However, what are the conditions of the scholarship is it maintain a 3.0, top 35% of the class or something alone those lines? If so be very careful, because these scholarships are hard to maintain all three years this New York Times article does a pretty good job explaining law school scholarships. http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/01/business/law-school-grants.html?pagewanted=all . To simplify basically a school will say you need a 3.0 and this sounds easy to someone who was awarded a law school scholarship, because they got that in undergrad without trying. Law school is much different, because it takes people that are good at school and your in a system where only 35% of you generally can get a 3.0 so 65% of the class will not have a 3.0 and there is a 65% chance you will be one of the people that doesn't maintain the 3.0 and the scholarship for years two and three go away. So just ask about the scholarship conditions schools will be forthcoming if you ask, but they are rooting for you to lose it, because it is thousands of dollars in their pocket if you do. They won't engage in any foul play or anything, but they would much rather have 40,000 more in their pockets.

Then a final consideration is how you feel about both of these schools. Each school really does have a culture to it and you need to see if you fit into it. I know absolutely nothing about either school, but I do know every school I visited had a different feel to them and some I liked some I didn't like. These opinions were based on my own subjective opinion you will have your own what I love about X school you might hate and vice versa so figure out what you like, because your living with the decision.

Also realize there is no right decision when choosing a law school. I think most 0L's myself included just try to find some sign telling you what the right option is, but you will never be 100% sure. Wherever you decide part of you will wonder what if I went to X instead of Y and if you did it the other way same thing. I had and still have those feelings about the school I choose. I enjoyed my experience, but my life would be completely different had I gone to another school maybe for better maybe for worse I will never know. My point is there is no right answer.

Final thing to realize when going on these boards is that I and everyone else posting anonymously on this board and other boards should not be taken to seriously. I know nothing about you, or your situation, and people pretend to know a lot more than they do when speaking anonymously myself included, because there are no repercussions for me if everything I said is completely wrong and same goes for everyone else posting.

It is a tough decision, but it sounds like you have two good options good luck to you.